Back in 2017 I was in process to become a Customs and Border Protection Officer. I passed the examination, background check, physical agilities portion, and drug test. I received a call from the Polygraph Examiner for the appointment. I sat in a small office, strapped into a chair like a criminal, and bombarded with questions for hours, while having a blood pressure cuff cutting out the circulation to my arm. If someone tunes out their arm going numb and getting the questions right, hats off to you. The result of the exam is that I failed without anything explanation. After the bad news the Polygraph Administrator was talking like a "friend" and stated if you have any additional information you could write it down and choose something from a list. Apparently I did a serious crime or something. I've never In my lifetime done a serious crime to be failed like that. No wonder over 60% of the applicants fail. How is an agency going to hire 5,000 qualified officers with this pathetic waste of time. In 2010 this came into the process, yet for the first 8 years of the agency it wasn't in sight. So for this I thank Barack Obama and the stupid administration circus he ran. Eliminating corruption I understand and the agency doesn't want people to be paid off from the cartels, or accept any type of bribes but if someone doesn't have anything in there background that indicated anything negative, works in a job that demands security, trustworthiness and privacy which would be a solid indication of a "qualified candidate". In my opinion, I would of made a great employee. That process was probably the worst thing I've ever encountered in my life. 

Anthony,

Thanks for sharing your polygraph experience. What happened to you has happened to many other well-qualified, honest applicants for employment with CBP and other federal agencies.

The discomfort you felt from the blood pressure cuff is common, and in fact, polygraph operators sometimes deliberately overinflate the cuff to cause pain. A training document leaked to AntiPolygraph.org mentions doing precisely this as a way of punishing examinees who breath more slowly than the operator would like:



We will be addressing this abusive practice in the next edition of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector and hope to see it discontinued by all federal agencies without delay.

As you note, CBP's misplaced reliance on polygraph screening, which is regrettably mandated by federal law, is preventing it from reaching its recruitment goals. But it provides steady work for the charlatans who give the "tests." Note that many of CBP's polygraph operators are retired federal employees supplementing their pensions with contract work. The longer the interrogations go, and the more the applicants who "fail," necessitating more "testing," the more work there is to go around for them.

Be careful, you don't want to drop a quarter into quickfix.